Walls
by Adoradork
Summary: From the moment Donatello saw April, his heart was lost. They've known each other for months now, but still he can't tell how she feels. Are they destined to be together, or will all his longing only end in a broken heart?
1. Walls

_When April needs help with schoolwork, Donatello will always be there. Numbers are easy. It's life that's hard._

* * *

It started with a text message, as always. _Calculus test tomorrow. PLEASE HELP._

"Going over to April's," he said to his brothers.

"Have fun," said Leo, not taking his eyes off the TV.

Donnie left the tunnels behind for the light and noise of the city. New York at night was a nasal cacophony, car exhausts and cooking and garbage and people. If the sewers were a refuge, they were also a prison. Here on the rooftops, for a while, he could be free.

He lost himself in the journey, run and leap and land and run again. The thrust of muscles and the impact of feet on concrete and tile, the shock of it through his body, the tender pull of scars old and new. He paused on the edge of the rooftop. Across the alleyway the light was on in her room. He leaped across, landed on the fire escape.

April threw open the window. "Donnie! You're a life saver."

"That's me. Always here to save the day." He tucked his bo out of sight in the corner, sat on the windowsill, swung his legs over and into her room.

It was nice to be welcome.

* * *

Donnie's arm was on the bed behind her. She could feel the warmth of it through her shirt. He was leaning over her shoulder, intent on the book, one finger tapping the page to emphasise his point. She turned her head slightly, to find his cheek inches from hers. Under the curve of his jaw, the muscles in his neck stood out beneath the mottled green skin.

And he had no idea how close they were. A slow warmth spread in her belly. He was always at his best when explaining something, when the intellectual side of him was firmly in control. There was none of the awkward, unsure Donnie then. If only-

_I wonder what would happen if I kissed him._

"Does that make sense?" he said.

"What? Uh, oh, yes. Right." Damn, she didn't have a clue what he had just said. "Um, at least-"

They both froze at the sound of footsteps in the hallway.

"Oh my god, Dad will have a fit if he finds you in my room at this time of night!" she whispered.

The door handle moved. There was a soft sound and Donnie was gone from her side. The ruffle around the bottom of her bed rippled. She sent a silent thank you to ninja stealth.

The door opened and her father poked his head through. "April? I thought I heard you talking to someone."

"Nope. Just, um, the radio."

He looked down at the book in her hand. "Isn't it a bit late to be studying?"

"Big test tomorrow." She hoped her grin didn't look as fake as it felt.

Her Dad walked over to the window and peered through. "It's a bit late for visitors, April."

"Of course." She tried to look as if there wasn't a ninja turtle currently hiding under her bed. She knew he appreciated the turtles, but there were limits. Her bedroom near midnight would definitely count as a line not to be crossed.

"_Any_ visitors." He turned and frowned down at her.

"Yeah, Dad, I know." No need for him to say who he meant. Who else came and went via her window at night?

He glanced outside once more. "Well, I think it's time for bed now."

"Sure. Night Dad."

"Goodnight, April."

The door closed behind him. April waited until she heard his footsteps moving away, then breathed a sigh of relief. "You can come out now," she whispered.

A purple plastic pony head peeped out from under the ruffle around the bottom of her bed. She squeaked, then slapped her hands over her mouth. The pony's body followed, dwarfed by the enormous green hand wrapped around its middle, bouncing it along the carpet like a demented rabbit.

"What are you _doing?_" she hissed. "Put that down!" She yanked the horse out of his grasp, blushing furiously.

Donnie's head emerged from under the bed. Dust patterned his skin. "It's like a toy graveyard under here. Why are there so many horses?"

"I liked horses!"

"There are plastic cowboy boots."

"They're cowGIRL boots, thank you." She grabbed his arm and hauled. "Now get out from under there!"

He emerged, grinning, and her blush threatened to set her face on fire. "New rule. Stay away from my bed!"

She caught the look on his face, and just like that, the easy camaraderie was gone. They were back to the awkward fumbling. She was weary of it. But how to climb this unscalable wall of unsaid feelings? How to reach a place where they were both comfortable?

His feelings were clear. It was her own feelings that she struggled with.

She sighed and let go of his hand. He stood and they faced each other, his hands wrapped around the leather harness over his shoulder, his eyes on the floor.

"Well, I'd better-" she caught herself before saying _go to bed_. "-call it a night."

"Sure. Good luck with the test tomorrow. Just remember the rules of derivatives. It's easy."

"For you."

"You can do it." He threw open the window and swung himself through. "Good night, April."

"Donnie." She leaned out, wrapped her arms around his neck. "Thank you."

She was rewarded with the tentative, gentle touch of his hands on her back, the catch of his breath.

"You're welcome, April."

He picked up his staff and was gone in one smooth leap.

* * *

He watched her silhouette move about the room, playing the evening over in his head, trying to assign meaning to every gesture, every word. But it was too hard, too open to interpretation and he failed, as always, to draw reliable conclusions from her actions.

But there had been one moment, leaning over the book, listening to her stumble through an equation, when he'd glanced aside and realised how close they were. Her lashes, the length of them, fascinated him and he'd lost the thread of her voice. The freckles on her cheek were a puzzle he couldn't solve. He longed to reach across and brush the hair back from her eyes with his fingers. To touch the warmth of her skin.

But instead, here he was on the rooftop, waiting for her light to go out. Again. An urge rose, to go back, to knock on the window, to ask the question that bothered him late at night. _Is it who I am, or what I am? Tell me._

The light in her room went out. He turned and ran, across the rooftops, under the hazy sky, back to the sewers, their refuge, his lonely prison.


	2. Numbers

April's bag drags at her shoulder, full of homework that somehow must be done in the six hours left before bed tonight. As well as dinner, say half an hour. And looking for Kraang activity, make that two hours, if they get lucky. Which left three and a half hours for trigonometry, biology, history and that awful current events essay. And Casey had texted her about another study session, but there is no way she can fit that in.

These days she always seems to be counting, shuffling numbers around to make her life work.

She pushes through the turnstiles and into the lair, is welcomed by variations on "Hey, April!" Their greetings are always cheerful, open, and for a moment she forgets about her impossible schedule. She feels safe, here in their home, more than anywhere else. Has lived with them for a time, though those days are shadowed by the loss of her father, her fear of abduction.

They are watching cartoons as usual, sprawled across the benches in the pit. Donnie gives her a wave, the little self-effacing gesture so very him. She smiles back and they head for the relative quiet of his lab. She abandons her schoolbag with relief.

Today they are working through the mass of information coming in to her message board, sorting through the conspiracy rubbish to find the good stuff. They are behind, her because of schoolwork, him because of too many nights spent patrolling.

Working together on a problem is when they are at their best. Two minds on the same track, riding the same rails, aiming for the same destination.

* * *

Her hand, resting on the benchtop, is two inches from his. Three, no, four strands of hair have escaped her ponytail to rest against her cheek. In the still air of his lab they move gently as if alive. It takes him a moment to realise it is his own breath that moves them, and he is lost in their motion.

And then he panics that she will feel that breath on her cheek and realise he is looking at her and so he yanks his gaze back to the screen, his heart going just a tiny bit faster.

He can't help it if his mind can tell him exactly how far away she is, in both X and Y dimensions. He can't help it if he knows the approximate range of her core body temperature, exactly how many freckles dance across her nose. That he knows her apartment is nine blocks away, her window ten metres from street level. That her lights go off anywhere between ten and midnight.

That she has twenty-four plastic horses under her bed, nine Barbie dolls and three pairs of cowgirl boots. The Barbie dolls surprised him a lot more than the horses.

He doesn't go out at night and watch her window anymore. Well, not every night. It wasn't his brothers' teasing that put a stop to it. It was the look on Leo's face, the slight eye twitch that told him _this behaviour isn't normal_.

The world might consider him a freak, but he can't bear his brothers thinking the same.

"There," says April, jabbing a finger at the screen, jerking him out of his thoughts. They play the video again, watch the violent flash of light so peculiar to Kraang portals. He downloads the video, files it under _confirmed Kraang activity_ and they move on to the next message.

What was normal, anyway? He was a half-turtle, half-human hybrid accidentally created by an alien mutagen, raised in the sewers by a human/rat hybrid who was also a Grandmaster of Ninjutsu. That was his normality, and he was comfortable in it. Right up until the point he ran into the rest of the world's version of normal, and realised how unbelievably odd they were.

"What about this one?" April asks. The picture is blurry, a couple posing in low light in front of an indistinguishable building. The original poster has circled a misshapen blob in the background. "Could be a Kraang droid."

He squints at it. "Could be a wax model of Godzilla, too."

She swats him on the arm. "It's blue."

"It's kind of grey."

"It's blue-grey."

"That's not even a colour. It's either blue, or grey."

She rolls her eyes. "Fine. But it _could_ be a Kraang droid."

He doesn't argue any more, just files it in a new folder. When he labels it _humoring April_ she swats him again, with an outraged growl. He puts up his hands in mock surrender, grinning. He could duck away, but if he's honest with himself, her touch is welcome in any form. She pokes her tongue at him.

Now she's back to the message board, but he's still floundering through their last encounter, completely focused on her movements, her scent, her skin. He's always had an obsessive personality. His ability to focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else is incredibly useful when it comes to his projects.

Not so much when it comes to love.

"Dude, it's _creepy_." Mikey can screw up his face into an expression of _weird_ like no one else he knows. Being called creepy by Michelangelo cools his obsession more than anything else. Or cools the outward expression of it, anyway. What happens inside is harder to control.

He can't help but count the number of times they touch, accidentally, as they work.

She draws in a sharp breath, the hiss of it like an angry cat. He drags his attention back to the message board. There's a picture of Kraang droids in their corporate goon disguises, unloading a van with boxes that are, quite clearly, _glowing_. The poster has included an address, and a date. Last night.

"We have a winner," she says. Her hands on the bench are clenched into fists.

He files the picture away, uploads the location to his T-phone while she runs out to tell his brothers.

He tallies the numbers up in his head. _Nineteen times tonight. A new record._

* * *

She can't count how many times their work in the lab has led to another Kraang plot, another night where the boys go into battle for her, for their world. She _can _count the number of times they have allowed her to join them in battle. More and more now, after that first time.

Tonight they argue but she is determined. _I'll hang back. I swear. _The need to be there, to see, to _know_, beats down their defenses and they allow her to tag along.

But the numbers don't match. It's not five of them going into battle. It's _four_ and _one_.

It's not that they don't want her there. It's just that she still doesn't fit. They still work around her, still track her position to make sure she's okay. She can't keep up. It will be years before she can. Maybe never. They have a fifteen year head start. But she's going, and that's all that matters. Four and one.

She glances at Donnie, head down over his keyboard, lost in concentration. She thinks one of them, at least, would like it to be _three _and _two_.

She could stay in the lair and do her homework. She _should _stay in the lair and do her homework. But on days like this, when she has the Kraang clearly in her sights, homework seems so completely unimportant in the face of fighting to save the world.

She glances at the clock, adds up the hours, falls short. She'll be up past midnight yet again.


	3. Reach

Donnie paused on the rooftop edge across from April's window, balanced on his toes, ready for the final jump.

"Wait." Leo grabbed his arm.

"What?" He wanted to see her, needed to know she was healing well. Wanted to hear her voice, bathe in her smile.

Leo frowned. "Don't go soft on her. It won't do her any favours."

"I know that. I know she needs training. I'll do my part." He shook Leo's hand off, impatient to go.

"Good. Try to channel the Foot and forget about counting her freckles for a change," he said.

"Ha ha." Always with the teasing. Anyway, he didn't need to count them anymore. He knew that map better than he knew his own face.

Leo leaped and landed first, but Donnie was the one who tapped on her window. April abandoned her schoolbooks and threw the window open for them. Yellowing bruises shadowed her eye, her jaw, marked her throat and much more. He'd watched the bloom and fade of those bruises over the last two weeks. The bruises might fade, but the memory of the beating wouldn't. He knew that from experience.

"Hey guys." Her smile was for both of them, but Donnie liked to imagine her gaze lingered on him just a moment more than Leo. "What's up?"

"Training," said Leo.

Her eyebrows went up. "Now? Master Splinter said-"

"Special training." Leo held out his hand. She glanced at her door, then took his hand and hopped out onto the fire escape with them.

Leo let go of her hand. "There's a certain...weakness we need to address."

And now she looked nervous, and a little defiant. "What weakness?"

"I'll explain on the roof." Leo climbed nimbly up the fire escape.

She turned to Donnie, a question in her eyes, waiting for his reassurance, and it warmed him right through. He smiled at her. "Trust us." Ignored the stab of guilt, the instinctive cry of _protect her_ in his heart. They needed to do this, so there would be no more repeats of the beating she took at the hands of the Foot. He followed her up the fire escape. She would be wearing more bruises after tonight.

* * *

April knew she was gasping like a fish but she couldn't stop. Sweat stung her eyes, plastering her bangs to her forehead. She swiped at them with a hand that shook.

"You're still not getting it." Leo paced around them, his arms folded. "You can't do any damage out there." He walked up beside Donnie and thumped his plastron. "This is what you need to hit."

"I'm trying," she said through gritted teeth.

"Try harder."

Oh, she hated Leo. Hated all turtles right now. Stupid ninjas with their speed and dexterity and years of training. What did he want from her? She gathered her resources and ran at Donnie once again.

He sidestepped, swinging his bo down and smacking her on the arm. She stumbled away before he could hit her again, rubbing her arm. She knew he was pulling his strikes. He must be. If he hit her full force he would probably break her arm. But it still hurt.

And what hurt more was the look on his face. Blank, impassive. No encouraging smiles. No warm brown eyes. His chin was tucked down, his eyes hooded, his stance intimidating. She liked it when they did that to their enemies. It made her feel safe, confident. It was entirely different being on the receiving end of that stare.

She had to admit that a small part of her had never, ever thought that Donnie would be able to hit her. Raphael, sure. Leo, even Mikey, though he would probably apologise for every hit. But not Donnie.

She rushed him again, and again. He wasn't going soft on her, and the blows _hurt_. He whacked her side, her arms, her back, her legs. He wasn't sweet Donnie tonight. He was a torment, and a bully, and she hated him more than Leo.

She tried to duck under his bo and got a crack across her shoulders for her trouble. She stood back to get her breath, watched Leo pacing, impassive. She wouldn't cry. It didn't matter how much it hurt. She didn't cry when they carried her home, covered in bruises. She didn't cry when they were stitching up her leg. She wouldn't cry tonight.

"Try again," said Leo.

She wiped an angry hand across her eyes. "Why? It's hopeless!" She gestured at Donnie, his long arms, the six-foot staff which gave him a phenomenal reach. "How am I supposed to get past that?"

"April. When your enemy has a greater reach than you, you are at a disadvantage." God, he sounded just like Splinter when he lectured. No wonder it drove his brothers crazy. "You need to get inside his reach. Strike at the heart, where you have the advantage."

"Give me a weapon, then." He wouldn't even let her use her tessen. "How am I supposed to block him?"

Leo shook his head. "A weapon won't make a difference. You're not trying to block his strikes. You're trying to get past them."

"This isn't fair," she snapped, circling around for another try.

"It's not meant to be fair."

She knew that, and wished she hadn't said it. It was a sulky, juvenile thing to say but this was hopeless, and she hurt.

"Try again."

She hated his calm, insufferable voice. "How long do I have to do this?"

"Until you get through."

"What if I can't?"

"Then it's going to be a long night."

Rage burst like a dam in her chest. How dare he? How dare he come up here and make her hurt, make her work for this impossible goal? She charged at Donnie. It ended now. No more ninja games, no more torment. The bo came down and pain shot up her arm. But this time she didn't back off. She charged on through, ignoring the second strike that came down on her back, and the third that punched her shoulder.

She stumbled forward and smacked against Donnie's plastron. His arms went around her. Shock immobilised her for a moment, then she smacked her palms on his chest. "I did it!" She gripped his upper arms and laughed. "I did it!"

A huge grin split his face. "Nice work." Her Donnie was back, the brown eyes gazing down at her with approval, and something else. His skin beneath her palms was slick with sweat, but he felt cool, like water, like a night breeze. She was suddenly aware of how very male he smelled, sweat and leather and something else that was indefinably him.

Her breath caught in her throat. He'd held her before, but this time she wasn't being rescued, or crying over her father, and there was nothing to distract her from the tingle in her fingers where they rested on his skin, from the pressure of his hands on her back, from the heartbeat beneath his plastron that was just inches from hers. Her fingers jerked involuntarily, and he shifted his grip. He might not be built like his brothers, but the muscles beneath her fingers slid like cables under his skin, slick and hard as diamond.

"Well done, April," Leo said.

She gasped and jerked away from Donnie, so lost in the moment that she had forgotten Leo existed. Heat burned her cheeks. Donnie would have heard that, and now he would think that the embrace affected her. Which it did. But she wasn't ready to face those feelings. Not yet.

"Thanks," she said to Leo, trying to play it cool, trying to stop the trembling inside.

"That's enough for tonight. We'll have another session tomorrow."

She avoided Donnie's gaze as they climbed down the fire escape, as she mumbled thanks and good night and fled to the safety of her room.

She sat at her desk for a long time, staring at her homework but not seeing it at all, still feeling the texture of his skin under her fingers, her newly made bruises forgotten.

* * *

Donnie ran across the rooftops after Leo, trying to focus on where he was going. But his mind kept replaying the impact of her body against him, his body's sudden, overwhelming reaction to her touch. He imagined that was how drowning felt, flailing and breathless and out of control.

He could still feel the grip of her hands on his arms, each fingerprint like a supernova on his skin. But then she had gasped and backed away from him. He'd felt the shock run through her body, felt her hands jerk away.

_Am I that repulsive?_ Giant hands, green reptile skin, a hard plastron on his chest instead of warm muscles. In a world full of pictures, of magazines and television and internet, his only reflection was in the mirror.

They'd touched before, but not like this. Not sweaty and panting and so close, and he couldn't help but remember the way she wouldn't meet his eyes. It cut into him with the precision of the butcher's knife, slicing apart his self-image, never very strong in the first place.

They dropped down to the manhole cover. Leo pushed it aside. "Good job tonight."

"Thanks." He forced the word out.

Leo put his head on one side and regarded him. "What's wrong? Are you upset that you hurt her? She's okay. Better us than someone else."

"Yeah." His mouth was dry. "I know." It was a lesson that had to be learned, but he wondered if there was another lesson here, about the value of keeping certain people at arm's reach, where they couldn't get past your guard and strike at your heart.


	4. Touch

April throws her books into her locker and slams the door. She dodges Casey, who's been pulling secret squirrel faces at her all day, dropping hints about going to see the guys tonight. She flat-out lies to Irma, saying she can't meet up after school because her Dad wants her to help out at home. She knows she's being a bad friend, and silently promises to make it up to Irma. One day. When the Kraang aren't trying to capture her and the Foot aren't trying to kill her friends and when this feeling like she's going to throw up goes away.

Apparently love kind of feels like a bad taco. She's not impressed.

Then she texts her father and tells him she's meeting Irma after school for study, and begs the universe to not expose her lies, just for one more day. Because she has something important to do. She heads for the nearest sewer entrance, drops down into the noisome dark.

She remembers the feel of his skin under her fingers. Wants to know that feeling again. Wants to _smell_ him, of all things, and the thought makes her blush into the darkness. It feels kinky and weird. She deliberately steers her thoughts away from the concept of kissing. That's too much. She'll be content today to, to just reach out and touch him.

Her stomach flips over. A thousand butterflies perform a mad, stomping rain dance in her belly. Oh gosh. It can't be that hard. He likes her. That's been obvious since day one, in his nervous laugh, his stumbling speech, his focussed attention. She wonders if he always feels on the verge of throwing up when she's around, and hopes he does, because the way she feels right now sucks and it's totally his fault.

An image rises in her mind, of his arms around her, of him leaning down to kiss her and she stops and presses her hands to her face and squeaks. _Just friends_ no longer seems applicable, but _boyfriend_ is a concept way, _way_ beyond what she's ready for.

* * *

Donnie hears the rattle of the turnstiles and knows it's April, even before he hears Mikey's cheerful greeting. His brothers will be making their way over to her but he forces himself to sit at his workbench, forces his mind back to the circuitboard in front of him, the soldering iron in his hand. But his mind rebels, wanting to go out there and say hi and listen to her and gaze at her and say something cool, not that he ever does, he's such a loser when it comes down to it and hates the way his body and brain betray him when she's near and-

"Hey, Donnie!"

Her voice jerks him out of his bleak thoughts. His hand jumps spasmodically, and a flash of pain sears down his fingers as the soldering iron connects with flesh.

"Ow!" He drops the iron and shoves his hand in the sink, turning the tap on, letting the cold water take the heat out of the burn.

April is beside him, dropping her schoolbag on the floor. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"Nothing." He tries to smile at her but he's all unbalanced, his heart racing, and it comes out more of a grimace.

"Well it doesn't look like nothing." She reaches for his hand.

He yanks it out of her reach, harder than he meant to. "It's just a little burn. From the soldering iron. I was working on a board and I burned myself. When you startled me. I mean, when you came in. Not that it was your fault."

She blinks at him, with an expression of bemusement at his flood of words that he is achingly familiar with.

_Oh shut up, you tool_. He turns away, pretends to examine the burn, which is tiny and already fading and doesn't warrant the scrutiny he's giving it. This, having her here, is even worse than the last few days, the aching stain inside, the growing realisation that his brothers are probably right, that she doesn't think of him like that, that she never will, that they will always only be _just friends_. He thought he was getting a hold of it but now she's here and his traitorous body is trampling down the protective walls he has been building and they're gone and _he's_ gone and he resigns himself to following her around and mooning over her for the rest of his life like the tragic loser that he is.

"Donnie?"

He blinks, realises he has been staring at his finger for a while. "Um, sorry. Um." He clamps his mouth shut, turns away to dry his hand on a towel. _Pull it together. You've got her friendship. Don't screw that up, too._ He paints a smile on his face and turns around. "So, more messageboard today?"

"Oh no. I can't stay long. I just came over to hang out."

He braces himself against the sting of disappointment. Hang out means watch cartoons in the pit, or play video games, or just talk, but either way it's a group activity and today, today he doesn't think he can bear to sit on the other side of the room and watch and listen and dream. "Oh, well, okay. I want to finish this, so, um." He turns back to the board, settles into his chair.

He expects her to leave but she's still there beside him. She leans in, rests her elbows on the bench next to him. "What are you working on?"

He flicks her a sideways glance. She's got her head tilted, looking up at him. Focussed on him. A few days ago he would have been dancing inside. Now he just wants solitude, and space. He feels as fragile as an empty eggshell. "It's a new control board for the Shellraiser's weapons system. I want to integrate the visual systems so-"

She's listening politely. She always does, when he rambles on. Once he thought it was because she liked him. "So, yeah."

"Can I help?"

"Uhm." He's on the verge of saying no thanks, desperate to get her away so he can stop _feeling_, stop hurting. But his mind is not so easily retrained. "Sure."

"What can I do?"

"Well, ah, I need a couple of axial inductors. There's a box of them in the cupboard." He jerks his head toward the short metal cupboard where he keeps his scavenged electronics. She's gone then and he breathes properly, hadn't realised his chest was so tight.

April scrabbles around behind him. "Where in the cupboard?"

"In a box on the bottom shelf." He puts down the soldering iron and turns the board. If he attaches the axial inductors _here, _then...

"Rroawr!" shouts April by his ear as something jabs him in the arm. He shrieks and jumps a mile.

She standing next to him, laughing, holding a plastic dinosaur in one hand, a box tucked under her arm. "You have toy dinosaurs, Mr Hypocrite?"

He gathers the shreds of his dignity, difficult to do in the face of her laughter. "They're _figurines_ and they're scientifically accurate." He takes the _Acrocanthosaurus_ from her, turns it over to show her the scientific name and other details marked on its belly. "This is a crocodylomorph from northern Texas, Early Cretaceous period."

She dumps the box on the table. "I didn't know you were a dinosaur buff."

"I was for a while, when we were kids. Until I discovered electronics."

She's pulling dinosaurs out of the box now, spreading them out on the bench. "And of course you never played with them." She glances up at him with a grin.

"I admit nothing," he says. He picks up the long slender body of a herbivore, surprised how much he remembers of them. And yes, maybe playing with them. A little.

"What's that?"

"_Maiasaura_. It's what _Acrocanthosaurus_ used to eat," he says.

She giggles and attacks with _Acrocanthosaurus._ "Come to me, prey!" she says, cackling madly as she lunges the figure at his dinosaur.

"No!" He fends her off, blocking her with his shoulder as he keeps his dinosaur out of her reach. "Get away from me, you, you _carnivore_!" he says.

April snorts with laughter and jabs him in the side with her dinosaur. He yelps, and her training is really paying off because she lunges for _Maiasaura_ and his only option is to put her in a headlock to prevent his dinosaur being eaten and now they're wrestling and giggling like idiots.

And suddenly it doesn't matter that they'll only ever be friends. He lives for these moments, these sweet, happy moments and he knows he'll do anything to keep them. She gives up, laughing, and he lets go, leaning on the bench, wishing with all of the bittersweet regret in his soul that things were different, but it's not an ache now, just a twinge, and he can live with that. He so desperately wants to put his arm around her and pull her close, lean his head on hers in a silent _thank you_. Maybe he will, one day. In a friendly kind of way.

She's back to pulling dinosaurs out of the box, still chuckling. She holds up a _Protoceratops_ which has been liberally covered in paint. "Why is this one orange?"

"Because Mikey," he says with a sigh. He takes the vandalised dinosaur from her. "I was so mad. I tried to take Mikey up to the surface and leave him there to be eaten by humans but Leo caught me and I had to bring him back." He chuckles at the memory.

"He's cute. I like him."

"He's annoying."

"I meant the dinosaur." She grins at him. "We should give him a name."

"Orange? Fruity? Violated?"

"I see the skill at naming doesn't run in the family." She holds him up, contemplates him for a while. "I think...Maurice."

"Maurice?"

"It suits him. Doesn't he look like a Maurice to you?"

"He looks like a _Protoceratops_."

She laughs at him, but it's nice laughter at his impossibly literal brain. He shrugs.

"What's so funny?" says Raphael from behind them.

April turns. "We're naming Donnie's dinosaur. He's called Maurice the _Protoceratops._" She holds him up. "Do you like it?"

Raphael stares at the figurine, eye ridges raised. "Nerds," he says, shaking his head, and wanders out again.

They burst out laughing. Nerds they might be, but it's a title he doesn't mind sharing with her. Doesn't mind it at all.

April starts to pack the dinosaurs away with a sigh. "I'd better go."

"Thanks for coming over." He's glad, now. He can stop chewing himself up inside. They are still friends, and he will learn to live with that.

"That was fun," she says, grinning. She goes quiet, and still, her smile fading. He can feel it, with his ninja senses and that other sense that knows her movements and expressions so well. He's about to ask her what's wrong when she lifts her hand and rests it on his arm, on the swell of his bicep, a feather-light touch.

His mind shuts down, every neuron in his body focussed on her hand on his arm. His heart does a hammer-dance in his chest. He tries to calm himself, tries to rationalise it, feels the heat rising on his cheeks. Looks up and meets her gaze.

There's something there, in her eyes. She squeezes his arm, gently, just enough that he knows that the touch is deliberate, that it is _considered_, that it…that it means something.

Her gaze flicks away, and there's colour rising on her cheeks, too, a bright red flush rushing up her face in a tide to drown her freckles. Then her touch is gone. She's bending down to grab her bag, throwing it over her shoulder.

"Night, Donnie." She turns away. The top of her bag is open just a crack. Through the whirling confusion in his mind he manages to move his hand, grasp, drop.

"Goodnight, April," he says.

At the door she turns to look at him and smiles, the blush still coating her cheeks.

He thinks he might be dying.

* * *

She's grinning as she walks, a big grin that threatens to break her face but she can't stop. She's proud and excited and nervous and completely, irrationally happy. The nausea is gone, replaced by a stinging hot feeling every time she remembers her hand resting on his arm, the way he'd looked up, the _startled_ look in his eyes.

His adorable blush. Oh god. She presses her hands to her cheeks and they are still hot and she's _still_ grinning. She does a happy dance in the darkness, one that Mikey would be so proud of.

By the time she makes it home, closes the door on her father's polite enquiries she's managed to regain control of her face. Homework. She has homework to do. Somehow. She sighs and upends her bag on her desk. Books cascade out, and something bright orange that bounces off the desk and lands on the carpet.

She picks up Maurice and she's smiling all over again. She didn't even see him tuck it in there. Sneaky ninja. She places him carefully on her shelf.

An impulse rises. She glances at the window, but there'll be no-one there tonight. She hesitates for a second, then grabs Maurice and drops a hasty kiss on the tip of his snout, before placing him back on the shelf with a shaking hand. With a squeak she launches herself onto the bed and buries her face in her pillow, hugging it to her chest and giggling uncontrollably. Oh, she is gone, she is so gone. She's in love with her best friend. Her best male friend. _Sorry, Irma. _

And she can't even text Irma and tell her. Damn it.


	5. Exchanges

Donnie splashed his way through the sewers toward home, hefting a box of parts scavenged from the local dump. The icy sewer water made his feet ache. Autumn might be pretty up top but in the dank, dark tunnels where the sun never reached the cold penetrated skin and shell and chilled them to the core.

He wondered what time it was. The sun had been setting when he left the dump. Maybe around six? They wouldn't be patrolling until late tonight. Maybe April would come over. He smiled into the darkness, remembering the last time he had seen her. Remembering her hand on his arm. He walked a little faster, eager to be home.

By the time he reached the lair, his hands were numb as well as his feet. The huge open room was just barely warmer than the tunnels. His brothers were curled up in the pit under threadbare blankets, staring mindlessly at the television. He was halfway across the room before Leo noticed him.

"Hey, you're back." Explosions sounded and Leo's attention was drawn back to the television. Donnie was at the door to his lab before Leo spoke again. "You just missed April. She said to say hi."

Disappointment flared. He shouldered the door open. Just his luck that the first time she came over in days he was out. All the long months of dancing around each other, wondering if she felt anything for him, making a fool of himself over her, many times over, and then with one touch she had told him...what? He sighed. _I need a manual for this. Relationships for Dummies._ No, that wouldn't do. _Relationships for the Extremely Intelligent._ Better.

A bright splash of purple in the middle of his desk caught his eye. He set the box down on the floor hastily. April's purple pony sat on his notebook. He picked it up with a smile. Underneath April had written '_Thought you might like some company while you work. Sorry I can't stay. Calculus study at home tonight.'_

Grinning, he rubbed his thumb over the smooth plastic and pulled his laptop closer. He set the pony down and opened up his messenger program. April was online. He smiled as he tapped out a message and hit send.

* * *

"Thanks for the study date," said Irma, flopping onto April's bed and pulling a hefty calculus text out of her bag.

"Oh, no problem. I need to do some serious cramming too if I'm going to pass this subject."

Irma pushed her glasses up her nose. "It's just that you've cancelled so many of them lately, I wasn't sure if, you know, you had any time left for me."

April blushed into the silence. Oh, she was a _bad _friend. She sat down on the bed beside Irma. "Irma, I'm sorry," she said quietly. "Please don't be mad. There's just...so much going on in my life now, and I, I just..."

Irma folded her arms. "Just answer one thing for me. That Casey Jones. You're not a couple, are you?"

"No!"

"That's good. Because you're always running off with him and I swear if you are ditching me to kiss _that_ then I have no hope for you." Irma folded her arms and glared at April.

Damn Irma and her sharp mind. A lot of people called Irma nosy, but it wasn't that. Irma just had a deep and pressing need to understand _everything_. The two of them had been friends since kindergarten and Irma's pursuit of the truth in any situation was something April was familiar with. On the plus side, it did make her a lot less likely to jump to conclusions without evidence. Which meant if she thought April and Casey were together then April had been showing The Signs.

"No." April shook her head with all the sincerity she had. "No, really, we're just friends."

"So what do you do together all the time, huh?"

And now April wished she had spent some time coming up with a cover story. "Uh, just study."

"With _Casey Jones?_ Please." Irma rolled her eyes, but to April's relief she let it go, picking up her textbook. "So what chapter are we up to?"

"Seven, but I could really do with a review of chapter six. I barely scraped through the last set of exercises. I think I've got the derivative rules down but then I hit a problem and I feel that I have no idea what I'm doing." She was babbling, she knew it. _Calm down, April._ "Hey, how about some study fuel?"

Irma grinned. "Hot chocolate?"

"With extra marshmallows." It was their traditional fare. April bolted downstairs to make it, spread chocolate powder over the bench with shaking hands, slopped some liquid on the carpet going back up the stairs. Wow, she was a mess tonight.

Irma had a huge grin on her face when April came through the door. "Sooo. Who's _Donnie_? Hmm?"

"What?" April nearly dropped the cups. "Where did you-" She followed Irma's gaze to her laptop with a sinking feeling. The popup window in the middle of the screen was blatantly obvious. She had forgotten to sign out of messenger before Irma came over. _Great stealth skills there, April. _She slopped some more chocolate in her panic.

"Hey!" Irma grabbed a cup from her. April set the other cup down on her desk and read the message.

_**Donnie**__: Thanks for the pony. She's cute. Does she have a name?_

Irma leaned over her shoulder. "You gave some guy a pony?"

"It was a toy pony." What should she do? If she just signed out without saying anything, what would Donnie think?

Irma grinned at her. "Well go on. Don't leave him hanging."

April tapped at the keyboard and hit send.

_**April**__: Twilight Sparkle._

The reply came back in moments.

_**Donnie**__: Hahahaha are you kidding?_

_**April**__: I didn't name her! She's from a TV show._

Irma sipped her chocolate. "Donnie is kind of an old-fashioned name," she said, her voice neutral.

"Yeah. Um…" April glanced sideways and met Irma's gaze over her cup. Her mind had shut down. She couldn't think of a way out of this. She started to type _I have a friend over, I have to go_ but Irma saw her.

"Oh no you don't!" She reached over April and backspaced quickly. "Come on, O'Neil." Irma's eyes sparkled behind her glasses. "There's something going on here." Irma tapped her nose. "My spidey-sense is tingling."

"Nothing is going on. Really. He's just a friend." April couldn't meet Irma's gaze. With all the lying she'd done lately, she really should be better at it.

"So why haven't I met him?"

"Uhm…"

"Wait, you have met him, right? He's not some creepy internet stalker?" Irma's eyes narrowed behind her glasses.

"No! No, I've met him, he's nice. Um, kind of shy. Doesn't...meet a lot of people."

"I'm not people."

No, Irma wasn't. April could feel the walls of her lies bowing under the weight of Irma's scrutiny. "Look, we should be studying…"

Irma's eyes went wide. "Are you kidding me?" She pointed to the laptop screen. Donnie had gone to away mode, which could mean anything. But he hadn't replied to her last message. "I knew there was something up with you, and now I find out you have a secret internet friend who, for some strange reason, you have kept hidden." She folded her arms. "So what's the prob?"

"No problem at all."

"Uh huh. You're embarrassed about him."

"No!"

"Well, I know you don't care about colour, so that can't be the problem."

Not a problem for her, but yeah. Kind of a problem.

"I'm going to have to start using my imagination here, April. So." She tapped her chin, clearly enjoying making April squirm.

April shifted under her gaze. How was she going to get out of this?

"He's old," said Irma.

"He's sixteen."

"Hmm. Brainless jock?"

"Definitely not." April folded her arms, feeling more confident.

"He's a Brony."

"I don't even know what that is."

"Oh! I've got it! He's a furry!"

"What?"

But Irma was off. "You only meet in the park at night." She lowered her voice to a sexy whisper. "He wears a fox suit. You wear a bunny suit. You stroke his head while he yips at the moon and then you have hot fox love!"

"_What the hell,_ Irma!" April slapped her hands over her burning cheeks. But Irma was laughing at the ridiculous scenario and April knew she wasn't serious. "He does not!" She would not think about the words _hot turtle love-_ Oh crap, she just did.

She struggled to pull herself together, difficult with Irma laughing and making lewd comments about foxes. "He's perfectly…" She can't say _normal _with a straight face. But the more she thought about it, the more his differences mattered to her. "He's different, but in a nice way. He's smart. He's considerate." She wanted to mention all the times he saved her life, he and his brothers, but that would open up a whole other can of Irma enquiries and needed to be kept in the dark.

The laptop beeped with an incoming message and April tensed, hoping Donnie hadn't said anything about the Kraang or the Foot or anything else that might trigger Irma's curiosity.

_**Donnie**_: _Sorry, had to go fix the television for Mikey. They had an ad on for a dinosaur exhibit at the museum. It looks awesome!_

"Oh, he's a dinosaur buff?" said Irma.

"Yeah, he is." April sat down and tapped at the keyboard.

_**April**__: I know! Our biology class is going there on Friday._

_**Donnie**__: I'm jealous._

_**April**__: I'll take lots of photos for you._

_**Donnie**__: Thanks!_

She realised that Irma was leaning over her shoulder.

_**April**__: I really should go study now. Talk to you later!_

_**Donnie**__: Goodnight, Princess._

"Princess?" squeaked Irma.

April buried her face in her hands, feeling the blush blaze up her neck until it felt like her entire head was on fire. Oh no. Why, why, why of all times had he decided to call her princess _now_? She bonked her head on the desk. She had avoided talking to him about it before out of sheer embarrassment. But this really had to stop.

Irma was spluttering behind her. "Okay, I know if _anyone _called you princess they would be walking away with their manhood in a paper bag. So what's the deal, O'Neil? And why are you _blushing_, hmm?"

April sighed and covered her cheeks with her hands, not that it would help because her blush was everywhere. "I kind of like him," she whispered

Irma squealed and grabbed her shoulders. "I knew it! You have a secret boyfriend!" Irma dragged her to the bed, shoving books onto the floor to make room for the two of them.

"Tell. Me. EVERYTHING."

_Oh boy._

* * *

He was proud of himself for having the courage to call her princess directly. Of course he had let the term slip before, but she'd never said anything about it. He felt that now was a good time to say it out loud, to make it clear how he felt about her.

He thought about April as he sorted through his scavenged parts and the night drifted past him. He wasn't expecting more messages, so was surprised when his computer beeped.

_**April**__: You._

_**Donnie:**_ _?_

_**April**__: YOU._

_**Donnie: **__Um?_

_**April**__: When I see you next I am going to kill you so hard._

Oops. Too soon, then, for princess. His confidence crashed down around him. What should he do?

_**Donnie:**_ _Um, sorry?_

_**April: **__YOU WILL BE._

April went offline. Donnie closed the window with a sigh. One step forward, one mile back. He opened Firefox. Maybe there was a book out there for the romantically clueless.


End file.
